A quiet, reflective day from Serenity, the stock-picker whose reconstructed views this site tracks. Rather than adding to positions or laying out fresh supply-chain theses, he offered two loosely connected observations — one on the AI incumbents, one a self-deprecating aside about where the real returns have been hiding.

A contrarian nod to OpenAI. Serenity floated the idea that Sam Altman and OpenAI must be doing something right precisely because they are irritating the Mag7 — the megacap tech cohort — by building an independent ecosystem instead of being absorbed into an existing one. He named Alphabet (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft as the incumbents now facing a genuine disruptor, something he suggested has been rare for years.

The mention is worth context given how these names fit his framework. Alphabet is his demand anchor for the entire AI-photonics trade: a cash-rich hyperscaler whose enormous capex and custom TPU chips he uses to justify the small upstream suppliers he actually owns. Apple, by contrast, he treats not as a holding but as a future customer for those same small-caps — most notably a potential buyer of specialist lasers for next-generation wearables. His comment today was cultural rather than a change in thesis on either.

A wry reality check on returns. Serenity then pointed to APR, the Korean beauty company behind the "Medicube" skincare line, noting its roughly 529% two-year run has crushed both NVIDIA (NVDA) and Intel (INTC). NVDA is the central reference point of his method — the AI leader whose roadmap he uses to front-run upstream chokepoints — while Intel is one of his highest-conviction personal holdings, a bet on US policy protecting its domestic foundry. His point was tongue-in-cheek: global consumer demand can, at times, outpace even the hyperscaler-driven memory and laser shortages he builds his portfolio around.

No new buys, sells or sizing were disclosed today.